General
Monday, 05 December, 2005
Unconventional Wisdom
Conventional wisdom dictates that early season you should go high, probably somewhere with a glacier, what the tour operators would call “guaranteed snow”. Does this really stand up to facts? Once again two high altitude resorts: Val Thorens and Val d’Isère, have had to put back their openings. What greeted visitors to Valtho when it finally opened on the 24th of November was a vision dubbed as “skiing circa 2020”. A ribbon of artificial snow snaking down between brown slopes. Someone suggested that they consider a roof over the pistes to protect them from sunlight, a sort of Snowdome in the mountains. Fortunately salvation came a day later in the form of 10cm of fresh snow which at least made the mountains look all white.
Les Sept Laux last week
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Friday, 14 October, 2005
2005 Set to be Hottest on Record
Baring a major incident (volcanic eruption, nuclear war, someone leaving the door open on one of those American style fridges) climatologists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies are warning that 2005 will be the hottest year on record. Average temperatures taken from 7,200 weather stations around the world already make this year 0.4°C warmer than 1998, the previous hottest year.
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Monday, 18 April, 2005
Video Nasties?
It is a warm, sunny evening in the ski resort of l’Alpe d’Huez. Music pumps from the apres hangouts, places like O’Sharkeys, Crowded House and the FreeRide Café. Cigarette smoke hangs in the air like spring fog. Lubricated by beer on-tap the resort’s riders are admiring the feats of their heros on video monitors suspended from the ceiling. Guys like neo-punk Seth Morrison and Doug Coombs, filmed in the nearby freeride mecca of la Grave.
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Saturday, 15 January, 2005
Climate Change Hits Alps Hardest
It seems that the Alps are getting more than their fair share of global warming. Météo-France’s Centre d’Etude de la Neige (incidentally the director is a PisteHors.com member) has just published a report showing that local variations can be much more extreme than average global climate change.
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Tuesday, 12 October, 2004
Andorra - Expand or Die?
Situated high in the Pyrénées, close to the border with the principality of Andorra, is a large bowl. It is one of those secret spots. Ignored by the package tourists making their way to the slopes and tax free shops of Andorra. Novice ski tourers can train on the gentle 500 meter climb to the Pic de la Mina knowing that they are not far from civilization if things go pear shaped. Experts can explore the many couloirs that descend from the ridgelines. The whole area is reached after a short climb from the ski lifts of the French resort of Porté-Puymorens.
The slopes from the Pic de la Mina
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Saturday, 06 March, 2004
Return of the Snowmobile?
A recent case from the Conseil d’Etat (French Supreme Court) has been seized upon by some mayors as a green light to start snowmobile operations in the mountains. A spokesman for the Mayor’s association said “snowmobiles are now authorized on any public road that has snow’. Despite some tolerance of the activity by courts, the new ruling is nothing of the sort.
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Tuesday, 28 October, 2003
Saint-Honoré Goes Under the Hammer
The ‘phantom’ ski station of Saint-Honore in the Isère region was sold at auction on Tuesday to an anonymous bidder. The station, abandoned since 1983, fetched 838,000 Euros.
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Saturday, 21 December, 2002
Study Shows 2002 2nd Hottest Year Ever
The World Metrological Organization (Organisation Météorologique Mondiale) has released a study showing that 2002, on a global scale, is without doubt the second hottest year since records began in 1860.
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Tuesday, 10 December, 2002
Chamonix Mayor faces double manslaughter charge
Chamonix mayor, Michel Charlet, already indited for manslaughter for the Montroc avalanche faces the same charge for the Mont Blanc tunnel fire.
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Wednesday, 23 October, 2002
Snow Cannon Aid Raises Eyebrows
In the same week that French President Jacques Chirac has been telling the British to contribute more to the EU budget while refusing change to the subsidy paid to French farmers a new drain on the EU budget has surfaced: Snow Cannon Aid. With the bulk of the money going to ski stations, which according to studies on global warming, have poor long term prospects even some French are fuming.
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